6×6 Queens puzzles — unlimited practice

A fresh 6×6 board whenever you want one, at any difficulty, with 800 finished 6×6 boards behind this page. It is the size both daily runs open on, and the usual place to learn what a technique looks like. Place 6 queens: one in every row, one in every column, one in every colour, and no two touching — corners included. Change the difficulty with the pill beside the board, switch size from the Unlimited tab, and keep going: no daily limit, no streak to protect, no clock you have to beat.

What a 6×6 Queens board asks of you

Six colours over thirty-six squares: small enough to hold entirely in your head, big enough that a board can genuinely resist. The opening move is usually a colour squeezed into a single row rather than a region already down to its last square — that is the first real technique in Queens, and 6×6 is where most people meet it.

Which technique opens the board is what the difficulty pill beside it really changes. The strategy guide works through each named technique in the order the solver reaches for them, and the hint button on this board names the same ones.

Difficulty at 6×6 is a claim about the reasoning

The label never describes the square count — every board on this page has the same 36 squares. It describes what a board demands before it gives up its first queen, and the two move independently: a 6×6 rated beginner can be a shorter read than a 5×5 rated hard, 11 extra squares and all. The Queens Unlimited hub makes the same case with two real boards side by side.

Beginner — 150 boards. One region already holds a single square, so the first queen is free and the rest falls to counting rows, columns and colours. That one gift is deliberate: from an empty grid the simplest techniques have nothing to bite on without it.
Easy — 250 boards. Opens on a colour confined to one row or column. It owns that line, everything else in the line is dead, and the 6×6 comes apart from there.
Medium — 250 boards. Several of those confinements chained together, each one visible only after the last has been marked off — which across 36 squares means marking is part of the technique, not tidying up after it.
Hard — 150 boards. Pigeonhole arguments spanning several of the 6 regions at once, plus the exclusion reasoning that rules a square out by showing what it would break.

Easy, which is the recommended starting bucket for the whole site: small enough to see everything at once, and it still needs a real technique to open.

Practising at 6×6

Play the same bucket until the opening stops surprising you. Six is small enough that recognition arrives fast, and recognising the shape of a position before you start counting is the entire skill.

Two things hold at every size. A hint never guesses: it finds the next move a person could justify, names the technique, and waits for you to press show me before it marks anything. And boredom means move up a difficulty, not a size — the same reasoning with more squares around it is not new practice. The hub page has the full method.

Every 6×6 board here is provably fair

Each one was checked twice: once for having exactly one solution, and once for being reachable from an empty grid without a single guess. The check reruns over the whole pool before every release, so it covers all 800 6×6 boards rather than the handful anybody happened to play. If you are stuck here, there is a next step and the hint can name it.

Where 6×6 sits

Level one of the Daily Mini and the first two levels of the Daily Max are 6×6, so a rep here is a rep at the exact size the calendar opens on.

Daily Mini — three boards a day, 6×6 to 8×8. The one that carries a streak.
Daily Max — ten boards a day, climbing to 10×10 and finishing harder than the Mini ever gets.
Archive — every past day, still playable and still scored the same way.
5×5 practice — one step down, if 6×6 is currently more search than reasoning.
7×7 practice — one step up, once 6×6 at hard has stopped surprising you.

Every Queens board size

Questions people ask about 6×6 Queens puzzles

How many queens does a 6×6 board take?: 6 — one per row, one per column, one per colour. There are always exactly 6 colours, and no two queens may touch, corners included.
Is 6×6 harder than a smaller board?: Bigger, not necessarily harder. Difficulty here describes the reasoning a board demands. A large board with generous regions can fall to counting alone, while a small one can need an argument spanning several regions at once.
How many 6×6 Queens puzzles are there?: 800 in the pool for this size, split across the four difficulties — 150 beginner, 250 easy, 250 medium, 150 hard. The picker avoids repeats within a session, so you will not see the same 6×6 twice in an evening.
Which difficulty should I start with on 6×6?: Easy — the recommended starting point for the whole site.
Do these count towards my streak?: No. Streaks come from the daily boards. Practice is for drilling, so nothing here can break a run — or build one.
Can I play a 6×6 board on a phone?: Yes. The board sizes itself to the screen, so it stays tappable one-handed. If colour is not a reliable channel for you, turn on high-contrast colours in Settings and the regions separate by lightness instead of hue.